December 2023
HOLIDAY DINING e d i u G t f i G and
Ideas to INSPIRE
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Heartwarming holidays
Give what matters most this season: your time By Tessa Wolfsmith As the holidays approach, many of us find ourselves eagerly anticipating the joyous festivities and the warm embrace of loved ones. However, the true spirit of the holidays lies not only in the exchange of material gifts, but also in the act of selfless giving and spreading cheer to those in need. This year, consider making a real difference in your community by volunteering your time. Giving the gift of your time is a precious and invaluable contribution that can have a profound impact on those you serve. Whether it’s spending time with the elderly at a local nursing home, serving meals at a homeless shelter, or organizing a toy drive for underprivileged children, volunteering provides an opportunity to share the joy and spirit of the holidays with those who are less fortunate. Share special moments. One of the most heartwarming ways to give back during the holidays is by visiting nursing homes or assisted living facilities. Many of the elderly residents may not have family or friends nearby, and their spirits can be lifted tremendously by the presence of a caring individual. Taking the time to sit and chat with them, playing games or even offering to assist with small tasks can make a world of difference.
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Additionally, some facilities organize holidaythemed events, such as Christmas parties or cookie decorating, where volunteers are always in high demand. Bring holiday cheer to the homeless. Homeless shelters offer another vital opportunity for volunteering during the holiday season. With cold weather sweeping across the country, homeless individuals are especially vulnerable during this time. Serving warm meals to those in need not only fills their stomachs but also provides them with a sense of warmth, care, and community. Additionally, shelters often offer various services, such as distributing warm clothing or providing medical assistance, where volunteers can lend a helping hand. Families helping families. For children in need, the holiday season can often be a challenging time. Many families struggle to provide basic necessities, let alone gifts and celebrations. Organizing a toy drive or participating in existing programs, such as Angel Tree or Toys for Tots, can bring joy and hope to countless children’s lives.
during the holiday season, you not only bring hope and cheer to those in need but also inspire others to do the same. Your act of selfless giving has the power to create a ripple effect of kindness that can truly transform lives and uplift spirits. Furthermore, the rewards of volunteering extend far beyond the holiday season, as studies have shown that those who give their time experience higher levels of personal satisfaction and overall well-being. So, as you make your holiday plans this year, consider including volunteer work as an integral part of your festivities. Remember that the most meaningful gifts are often the ones that cannot be wrapped or placed under a tree. Instead, they are found in the smiles you bring to a lonely face, the nourishment you provide to an empty stomach, and the hope you instill in the heart of a child. This holiday season, give the gift of your time and share the cheer by volunteering in your community. Kindness is the best gift of all.
Donating gifts or volunteering at holiday events for these programs ensures that every child receives a gift, creating a sense of normalcy and joy that might otherwise be missing from their lives. By volunteering in your community
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December, 2023 - Holiday Dining and Gift Guide
Flowers and bulbs
Think ‘inside the pot’ for holiday gifts
By Sharon Naylor Holiday gifts bring joy, and few presents make gift recipients as happy as fresh flowers. Long winter days and evenings can drain a person’s energy, and vibrant, sweet-smelling roses, jasmine, lilies and other winter blooms light up the pleasure centers in the recipient’s brain, brightening the home and counting among the most adored presents of the year, especially if you choose the right vase the recipient can use again and again. A twist on the potted flower gift is the gift of bagged or potted flower bulbs. Each bag of a dozen or so earthy bulbs contains the promise of spring’s return, brilliant color and blooms to be cut and displayed in the home. Flower bulbs quickly are becoming a top gift choice for this reason; they become a gift that keeps on giving. But before you give what looks like a vase full of dirt — explaining that there’s an exotic flower bulb buried in there, so water twice a week and wait — keep in mind that you can make your floral gift look as if you spent three to five times your actual outlay, and invest a bit of personal effort in the presentation. “I loved the gift of narcissus that my niece and her husband gave me last year,” says retiree Corinne Stevensen.“But it was a little too obvious that they had just stopped in at the grocery and picked up a cheap potted flower in that telltale brown plastic pot, with a sticky spot where they had scratched the price tag off.” A successful gift is always given with a little bit of creativity and personal attention, so here are the top tips for giving flowers or bulbs as holiday gifts this year:
Give potted flowers rather than bouquets. Bouquets are nice, but if you’re going to a holiday party or family holiday dinner, the host or recipient would have to stop what he’s doing, find an available vase, cut the stems, put them in water, etc. A pretty potted bunch of flowers works far better in hectic holiday time. Choose a simpler pot. Skip the neoncolored, patterned, glazed or “busy” flowerpots and select instead a neutral color or one that you know suits the recipient’s home color scheme. Ideal neutral colors are sand, brown and sage green. Go with glass. Visit your local craft store to get a very pretty, deceptively inexpensive glass vase in a circular or square shape. These are the same simple glass vases that party and wedding hosts stock up on for their modern, elegant centerpieces, and they not only make the perfect holder for your floral gift but also are reusable. Dress up plastic pots with fabulous foils. Garden centers and supermarket floral sections may have these shiny wraps affixed on their flowerpots already, but it’s quite easy to take a sheet of foil paper in your chosen shade — i.e. winter white with silver stars, light blue, festive red, jewel purple — and wrap it around the base of your pot. Give bagged bulbs a label makeover. Leave that info-packed label sheet on your bag of bulbs — the recipient will need the details for smart planting — and print a holiday-design sheet of your own on your home computer. Tape your label to the package, and add an inexpensive round bulb planting tool and some
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cute gardening gloves; your gift is ready to go. Exotics can be fun but — if your recipient has a green thumb.˘ If you’re giving an exotic bulb that already is planted in a pot, take a few extra steps to make what looks like a pot of dirt look special. Insert a holiday label with the plant’s ID and a photo in the top of the pot, and wrap the pot with a velvet ribbon and bow. Get the kids involved. Let kids decorate terra-cotta pots. If they’re giving flowers to grandparents or others, let the kids paint holiday designs and messages on the pot or affix stickers to it. Consider petals. A popular holiday gift trend: giving a basket of fresh red rose petals for the recipient’s use in a later romantic evening, for sprinkling in the tub or using as table or display decor. Go for timely blooms. Winter’s in-season flowers: amaryllis, anemone, bell of Ireland, buttercup, camellia, Casablanca lily, cosmos, daffodil, forget-me-not, holly, jasmine, narcissus, orchid, poinsettia, rose, stargazer lily, star-ofBethlehem, sweet pea, tulip. Bulb garden gifts make an easy-to-grow, colorful gift for any loved one or yourself. Add them to a favorite container and watch your flower bulb gift grow.
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December, 2023 - Holiday Dining and Gift Guide
Culinary inspiration
Great ideas for the foodie
When gifting the foodie on your list, that one person who loves to cook or simply can’t get enough of his or her favorite cuisines, there are a host of savory options to ensure a tasty holiday season. Spice rack: Few home cooks can get by without a vast selection of spices, so a spice rack that includes all the essential spices makes perfect sense for the family foodie. Some spice racks even come with several years’ worth of free spice refills, so do your homework and find one that will have your friend or family member spicing things up for years to come. Cooking lessons: Cooking lessons can be a great way for men, women and even children to cultivate their love for food. If your friend or family member prefers a specific type of cuisine, then find him or her cooking lessons where he or she can learn how to prepare and not just eat some favorite dishes. Cooking lessons also make a great opportunity to bond with a loved one. If you, too, want to expand your cooking horizons, buy your own lessons and go with your friend or family member. A night out: If your favorite foodie prefers his or her meals made by someone else, treat that friend or family member to a night out at his or her favorite restaurant. You can give a gift card to the restaurant or take this special someone out yourself and enjoy a great meal and great company to boot. Serving dishes: Many home cooks not only love to eat but also love to serve up their favorite foods to family and friends. If your friend or family member has played host to guests many times in the past, surprise him or her with some new serving dishes. You probably have a sense of their serving style already, but if you don’t, make a mental note the next time you
visit or simply buy them a gift card so they can buy whichever dishes they need to make their next soiree a success. Wine rack: A great bottle of wine completes a great meal, so why not buy your family foodie a place to store all of his or her bottles of wine? Wine racks can range from the simple, inexpensive standup models to more complex or expensive models that need to be installed. If the eventual recipient of your thoughtful gift rents rather than owns his or her home, avoid buying a wine rack that needs to be installed, as that might cause damage that will cost them some money when the time comes to move out. You even can christen the new wine rack by supplementing your gift with a few bottles of your loved one’s favorite vintages.
A night out at a loved one’s favorite restaurant can make the perfect gift for the family foodie.
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December, 2023 - Holiday Dining and Gift Guide
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December, 2023 - Holiday Dining and Gift Guide
Cocktail classics Create iconic drinks associated with the holidays cranberry juice • 46 ounces pineapple juice • 4 1/2 cups water Place sugar and spices in 30-cup electric coffee pot basket (or reduce the recipe and use a large crock pot.) Add juices and water. Cycle as for coffee (or heat in crock pot until steaming.) Serve hot.
By DiAnne Crown Pretty, tasty, classic and with something for everyone, this beautiful cocktail, aromatic punch, Champagne sparkler and luscious cream treat will add flare to your festivities this holiday season. And for the purist, a brief look at port wine. The Maxwell’s Plum New York City’s legendary Tavern on the Green created this fruity, rich red concoction as an homage to the iconic restaurant of the same name. This “Step Back in Time” recipe from the Tavern on the Green cookbook serves two.
Eggnog: For your holiday open house
• 4 ounces plum vodka • 1 ounce Triple Sec • 1 ounce fresh orange juice • 4 ounces bottled cherry juice • 2 slices ripe plum (optional) Chill two large martini glasses. In a cocktail shaker half filled with ice, combine all the ingredients except the plum slices. Shake energetically for 10 to 20 seconds, and then strain into the chilled glasses. Cut a slit in each slice of plum and slide over the rim of each glass. Serve at once. Hot Cranberry Brew (nonalcoholic) The Ravinia Festival, held in Highland Park, Ill., every summer since 1904 except from 1932 to 1935 due to the Great Depression and 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, entertains more than half a million guests annually. In celebration of the tradition, music and food of the popular festival, The Women’s Board of the Ravinia Festival Association published a cookbook of favorite recipes in 2008. The collection is just as elegant today as when it was published. This recipe makes four quarts.
Those delightful friends who come to celebrate, not count calories, will enjoy this decadent take on a holiday classic by Taste of Home. This version calls for amaretto for the taste of almond and vanilla; brandy or a combination of rum and cognac could be substituted. Or make it family friendly without alcohol. This recipe makes approximately nine cups, or 12 3/4-cup servings. • 8 eggs • 1/3 cup granulated sugar • 2 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar • 2 cups whole milk • 4 cups heavy whipping cream • 1 cup amaretto • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon • 1 teaspoon nutmeg • Additional ground nutmeg In a large heavy saucepan, whisk eggs, sugar and confectioners’ sugar until blended. Stir in milk. Stirring constantly, cook over low heat about 20 minutes or until mixture is just thick enough to coat a metal spoon and a cooking thermometer reads at least 160 degrees. Do not allow to boil. Remove from heat immediately. Stir in cream, amaretto, cinnamon and nutmeg. Cover and refrigerate several hours or until cold. Sprinkle servings with additional nutmeg. Celebrate the season with a traditional holiday cocktail or a glass of a special pour.
• 1 cup brown sugar • 1 1/2 teaspoons whole cloves • 2 quarts
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December, 2023 - Holiday Dining and Gift Guide
Wrap it up
By Kristen Castillo
The holidays are hectic, and gift-wrapping may seem like a chore. Sure, you could cover the gifts in store-bought paper or slip them into gift bags, but think again. This is a great opportunity to get creative in wrapping your gifts. “Creatively wrapping a holiday gift shows the recipient that you took time to prepare their gift, that this wasn’t a last-minute gift,” says Alyson Dias, with iLoveToCreate. “With life so often running at warp-speed, it’s nice to remind family and friends that you took time to carefully craft something just for them. It is often the wrapping that is more appreciated than the gift itself. If the gift inside is also hand-crafted, that just makes it even more special. Happiness is handmade.” Creative wrapping usually takes a little (or a lot) more time than traditional wrapping, but it’s not always very expensive. Plus, you can involve the kids because many wrapping projects are family-friendly. Kid creations.< For Malia Britton, an environmentally conscious mother of two young children, holiday gift wrap is as simple as recycling her children’s artwork. “That way, the recipient gets unique, oneof-a-kind gift wrap, my kids get to share their art, and I get to offload the ever-increasing stack of paintings. It’s an all-around win!” says Britton, noting her solution is both green and a cost saver. Gift recipients love the artwork-as-gift-
Creative ideas for gift-wrapping
wrap, too. “By using my kids art on the outside of their gift, they get a little glimpse into my kids’ creativity and can elect to save it for their walls or keepsake folder if they so choose,” says Britton. Sweet inspiration. Add some holiday flair to your gift giving by adding some sweets to the top of the package. Tie different candies to the gifts’ bows and ribbons. Candy choices include candy canes, lollipops, Pez dispensers or mesh bags filled with small chocolates or gummy bears. Cookie-cutter creations. While you don’t want “cookie cutter” holiday wrap, it’s fun and creative to make gift tags by tracing cookie cutter designs onto card stock or plain gift wrap. Consider using cookie cutter designs like stars, trees, snowmen and angels. Then cut, glue, layer and decorate the cutouts any way you want before affixing them to the present. Season’s greetings. Got a stack of last year’s used or unused holiday cards? Give those festive designs a new purpose by trimming the wording, images or characters from the cards and turning them into gift tags. For example, cut out a card’s sparkly tree and glue the cutout to the wrap. From the texture of the cardstock to the color of the images, this form of upcycling can really dress up a gift. Add some shine. Tie an ornament to the top of the gift or tuck one onto the handles of a gift bag. The ornaments can be standard fare or personalized. Either way, they’ll look great
Holiday Dining and Gift Guide - December, 2023
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on the gift and can be reused on the tree, year after year. Get scrappy. Use scrapbook paper and stickers to create your own gift labels or to decorate wrapping paper and gift bags. Since scrapbook paper is generally made of a thicker cardstock, it holds up well when used alone, or glued or taped to wrapping paper. Pick a theme. Choose one color, texture or pattern as a gift-wrap look with maximum impact. For example, wrap gifts in one color like festive red; focus on the feel of your wrap using smooth paper and satin ribbons; or choose a pattern such as snowmen or reindeer to unify your gifts. Eco-friendly. “Since I don’t get to wrap gifts often, I like to be creative and eco-friendly by using either chic, reusable tote bags, colorful scarves or old, patterned shirts,” says DIY fashion blogger Tanya Thamkruphat. Use your own fabrics, or buy them. Some retailers sell fabric wraps to easily and stylishly cover a gift. Wrap presents in these sparkling gift boxes, which you can make using a few craft supplies.
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December, 2023 - Holiday Dining and Gift Guide
Museum adventure
Give the gift of a holiday trip that is just as fun and rewarding as it is educational By Polly Jamison A trip to the museum can be more than a stroll through the halls and a trip to the gift shop. With some planning, your child can also enjoy the anticipation and lasting memories of a wonderful museum experience. But this is no last-minute present. Careful planning can make holiday experience full of memories that will last a lifetime. Make It Personal Choose a museum that piques a child’s interest in a new subject or builds on his or her existing understanding of a favorite subject. Natural history museums, aquariums, art and history museums with or without special children’s areas can expand an interested child’s experiences. Special events in living museums present exhibits and experiences of past and future days, which can excite, enlighten and inspire children to not only reflect back but look forward to the future. In choosing the museum, whether close to home, or New York City, or as a destination experience on, for example, a family trip, carefully consider what you know of your child’s interests, learning ability and energy level. Plan for breaks, take along comfort items and decide whether this would be best as a visit with you and just one child or as a family. Plan Ahead See where the exhibits are located in order to time the length of your visit, considering the age of your child (and any grandparents who might be participating). You may want to focus on one or two areas of a very large museum for a more relaxing, in-depth visit, especially for younger children. For example, a natural history museum highlight could be the mammals, or ocean life, or dinosaurs, or a special traveling exhibit, and leave the rest for another visit. Find out if children are allowed to carry small backpacks in the museum. Collect, or print out at home, brochures, handouts and postcards. Check out the museum gift shop. Children love gift shops, but they can be expensive. To avoid disappointment, be sure to understand the monetary needs for a gift shop visit. Consider picking up or ordering a DVD featuring the museum and/ or highlight exhibits. The brochures, stickers, pins, DVD and any other items collected or ordered online will go into an actual gift box for under the tree or by the menorah.
Want More? Many museums now offer day camps, age-appropriate one- to two-hour exhibit experiences and even overnight sleepovers for adults and children. Check out local and state museums in your area. Very large regional and national museums such as the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C., offer a wide range of experiences for family events with advance reservations. All children enjoy the anticipation and experience of a shared event, and special mementos that remind them of their visit. A museum experience that builds brainpower and family bonds is worth every minute of your preparation to make it a success. Create a gift box filled with creative tools that your kids can use to have a memorable day at the museum.
Make A Gift Box Other than the experience itself, this is the most fun part of the preparation. Create a gift box presenting the museum visit as your gift, and include any or all of the following: √ An invitation to the visit or museum event using the museum brochures, handouts, logo, etc. √ A T-shirt to wear on visit day, either from the gift shop or handdecorated using iron-on decals, logos and letters from your local craft shop.
Holiday Dining and Gift Guide - December, 2023
√ A coloring book about the museum and a new box of crayons. Everybody loves a new box of crayons! √ A small, inexpensive toy, book, pamphlet or puzzle representing the museum. √ A favorite theme-related snack, such as fish crackers, dinosaur fruit treats, teddy bear grahams or astronaut ice cream. √ A journal or notebook and stickers for observations, questions and sketches. Design a pamphlet as a passport with places to attach stickers or stamps as you move through the exhibits. This is a fun way to help keep children on track. √ A simple map of the museum and exhibits so the whole experience <checkmark Money for listening stations, experiential stations, feeding stations and the gift shop. √ A small backpack, if allowed, to hold items needed for the museum adventure — water bottle, snack, instant camera, outdoor exhibit items such as sunglasses, hat, magnifying glass or binoculars, etc. If the museum doesn’t allow backpacks, it can still be used in the car. Wrap the box and attach a gift tag with a sticker, sketch or short notation indicating the special surprise inside. Always keep a gift recipient guessing!
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December, 2023 - Holiday Dining and Gift Guide
‘tis the season for giving
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